Jeffrey Goldberg has been spending too much time listening to the lunatic ravings of his co-blogger Andrew Sullivan. He’s urging you not to donate money to help rebuild from the ravages of the forest fire in Israel (Hat Tip: Shy Guy via Hot Air).

Inevitably, the Jewish National Fund, which, among other things, plants forests in Israel, is asking for donations from Americans for its “Forest Fire Emergency Campaign,” in response to the massive fire spreading across the Carmel mountains. But I’m not giving.Israel’s per capita GDP is nearly $30,000. Israel is a rich country. The fact that it doesn’t possess adequate firefighting equipment is its own fault. The fact that the leadership of its fire service is incompetent is its own fault (you canread more about that here). At some point, the good-hearted Diaspora Jews who still think of Israel as a charity case are going to have to tell their cousins to learn to fully-fund basic services like firefighting if they want to be thought of as citizens of an advanced country.There are a great many good causes in Israel that deserve help, and a great many causes here in America that deserve our help. It seems to me, however, that Israel’s national fire service should be funded by Israel’s government, not by the people of Boca Raton, Potomac and the Upper West Side.

By Goldberg’s logic, I suppose Israel should not have sent any equipment to help out with Hurricane Katrina. For that matter, neither should anyone else outside New Orleans have helped. After all, it was well-known that the levees around New Orleans were at a risk of flooding. New Orleans is a rich city, and America is a rich country. The City of New Orleans should have dealt with the problem, and if it didn’t, its residents should have paid the ultimate price.The same goes for the specialized equipment Israel sent to help after the earthquake in Turkey. They should be prepared for earthquakes – they’re relatively frequent occurrences there. The same for tsunamis in Indonesia and Thailand earthquakes in Haiti (okay, they really are poor) and embassy bombings around the world.In fact, why don’t we just become isolationists altogether? You know – ignore everyone outside our own neighborhood/city/country. Ridiculous….If this had been any country other than Israel, would Goldberg (or anyone else) even have suggested it?